1. You suddenly give precisely no fucks what people think about you.
2. All that weird insecurity about your looks, which probably haunted you in your teens and twenties, just evaporated when you hit your thirties.
3. So you’re completely comfortable turning up to an event looking like shite, if that also means you’re cosy and comfy.
4. But, equally, you know exactly what to wear to look like a total babe.
5. You don’t feel intimidated by older/more senior people any more.
6. You know your own mind.
7. You’ve accumulated so many mind-crushingly embarrassing moments over the last 30 or so years, it’s hard for anything to make you cringe now.
8. People can’t patronise you because once you’re in your thirties – you’re anybody’s equal.
9. And yet you’re still pretty young! You know that as a 60-year-old, you’ll look back on your thirtysomething self as a wee bairn.
10. Being in your thirties means you got to watch the Back to the Future films the first time round.
11. And you remember a world without the internet! OK it was a bit boring, but, still – that was the lot of humanity for millennia, and you are part of the last generation to know what it was like.
12. You spent your childhood running about outside, because there were only four TV channels and no iPads.
13. You’ve been alive for at least 10,950 days and in all that time you didn’t die! Go you!
14. You are closer than you’ve ever been to living to 100, which would just be cool.
15. A lot of your friends have stopped going out because they have kids, so now you can relax and enjoy the hermit’s life you always wanted.
16. You don’t get asked to a billion parties every week, which means you don’t have to let people down by not going to their party at the last minute when you stupidly said you would.
17. Your eyes magically open to friends who are actually total dicks, and you finally realise it’s them, not you.
18. Then you dump them silently by just never getting in touch again. And tbh, they’re too busy with their kids to really notice so it's a stress-free breakup.
19. You collected Garbage Pail Kids stickers as a kid, which were way too sick and twisted to be released for children these days.
20. You don’t feel nervous getting into clubs or buying booze because you won’t be ID'd.
21. But if you are ID'd you feel immense pride in getting your driving licence out and showing them that you are in fact 32, a whole 14 years older than 18, but thank you for implying I look so young, thank you!
22. You watched Labyrinth as a wide-eyed 6-year-old with no expectations, and no older relative telling you “This is the best film ever”, and it turned out to be the best film ever.
23. And now you’re the older relative shoving Labyrinth into the faces of your 6-year-old nieces and nephews saying, “This is the best film ever.”
24. You know your body, which means you know how to have good sex.
25. You can cook at least one meal really fucking well – probably several.
26. You have upgraded from the cheapest wine in the shop to the £9-10 bottle when you go to a friend’s for dinner, because you realise buying someone nice wine is the right thing to do when they’ve cooked for you.
27. This also means you get to drink nice wine.
28. You have several weddings to go to a year, which entails more nice wine and a lot of top-quality bad dancing.
29. You feel no pressure to buy clothes with weird bits cut out of them, or that don’t cover your belly, just because that’s what the shops say is in fashion. In fact, you thoroughly reject clothes with weird bits cut out of them that don’t cover your belly.
30. Younger people sometimes look to you for guidance.
31. And you surprise yourself, because over these last three decades you’ve accrued the teeniest, tiniest bit of wisdom, and you’re more than happy to help anyone else avoid your mistakes.